Written
for inclusion in a concert that was also to include Birtwistle’s Tragoedia,
Mercurius was originally for the same instrumentation: wind quintet, string
quartet & harp, and in that version it was given it’s premiere in 1979 in
the Purcell Room, London, conducted by Peter Wiegold. However in response to a
request from the Bournemouth Sinfonietta for a piece for chamber orchestra for
the 1989 International New Music Week in Southampton at which I was a featured
composer, I made a number of changes; most significantly adding a doublebass
part and adapting the piece where necessary for optional orchestral rather than
solo strings. In fact this process of transformation predates eventhe first version of the piece which was evolved out of a quartet for
four flutes written a few years earlier; thus giving an extra significance to
the title by virtue of the “mercurial” transformations which that flute
material has subsequently undergone. The real significance of the title,
however, is not so much a reference to Mercurius as messenger of the gods, as to
the elusive, unstable, often volatile, “quicksilver” characteristics
ascribed to him, and which similarly characterise the material of the piece. For
although much of the music is not overtly “mercurial” in the sense of being
borne along on winged feet, the music seldom settles down and is always restless
beneath its surface, sometimes breaking out into explosive burst of sparkling
material.